A report from The Hill. “‘Higher prices and higher mortgage rates have boosted the required monthly payment to buy a home; it’s up by more than 40 percent from a year ago. This affordability challenge will shrink the buyer pool.’ National Association of Realtors chief economist Dr. Lawrence Yun wrote to The Hill.”

The Augusta Free Press. “Over the past few weeks, rates have risen faster than they have in nearly 30 years. In the second week of April, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 5 percent for the first time in 11 years. ‘Mortgage rates are rising more quickly than anticipated and will likely rise further during the year,’ says Virginia REALTORS^® Chief Economist Ryan Price.”

“In March, Virginia’s inventory expanded with an uptick in new listings and a slight slowdown in buyer activity. At the end of March, there were about 1,500 more active listings statewide across Virginia, a 12.1 percent increase from the end of February. ‘It is likely that Virginia’s inventory of homes for sale will expand over the coming months,’ says Virginia REALTORS^® 2022 President Denise Ramey. ‘Many sellers are feeling pressure from increasing mortgage rates, which will lead some to list their home for property now, before higher rates lead to less buyer interest.’”

The Press Enterprise. “The typical 30-year mortgage payment for a median-priced Southern California home increased to $3,157 last month. Thanks to the double whammy of rising prices and rising rates, that’s up $1,000, or 47%, from a year ago. Using words like ‘buyer fatigue’ and ‘sticker shock,’ agents say buyers are getting more cautious and are less likely to waive escape clauses like loan and inspection contingencies. More homeowners are backing out of deals after getting caught up in the frenzy of bidding, then recalculating what the monthly payment is going to be.”

“‘Some buyers are getting priced out because of rising rates,’ said Myiesha Majors, a sales agent with Berkshire Hathaway in Rancho Cucamonga. ‘But not as many as some people would think. … This time last year, I would see 30 (offers) easily. Now, it’s five or six. So, it’s drastically reduced but still multiple.’”

The Real Deal on New York. “Wendy Madden sold the Trump Palace condo she walked away with after her divorce from shoe mogul Steve Madden — for about half what the couple paid for it a decade ago. The sprawling 4,000-square-foot condo at 200 East 69th Street sold for $8.8 million at the end of March.”

The Orlando Sentinel. “Scott Silver is behind on his mortgage. Like tens of thousands of Floridians, the former technology salesman and his partner lost income during the pandemic and were unable to keep up with the bills. So when Florida opened a portal in February for people to register for mortgage relief, Silver signed up on the first day. Since then, all Silver says he’s received from the state is platitudes and silence.”

“‘All I have is just a registration number,’ said Silver, who’s been warned he could face foreclosure. ‘I can’t even get to an application. We’re going on two months.’ Silver received a letter from his mortgage carrier on April 1 informing him that the nearly $10,000 he owes is enough to begin foreclosure proceedings on the home where he raised his three children. ‘We went through March, we’re about to blow through April, and I can’t even get the next step,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t have come to this point. You don’t wait seven weeks at the bank for loan approval.’”

The San Francisco Business Times in California. “San Francisco-based Blend Labs Inc. said it’s cutting about 10% of its workforce at the fintech that works with some of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank. Blend is laying off about 200 employees in addition to cutting expenses elsewhere in its operations.”

“Things look even uglier for the mortgage lenders themselves. In a much-publicized move, New York-based Better.com cut 900 employees over Zoom last December. The New York mortgage lender cut another 3,000 jobs in March.  The mortgage-related layoffs occur as venture capitalists are urging their portfolio companies to conserve cash as prospects grow that it will be more difficult to raise another round of capital — and often at a lower valuation. This is a familiar script for long-time observers of Silicon Valley’s boom-and-bust cycle.”

“Earlier this year, Wells Fargo declined to comment on the prospect of layoffs in its huge mortgage operation. But CEO Charlie Scharf told investors on last week’s earnings call that trouble could lie ahead. ‘The mortgage origination market experienced one of its largest quarterly declines that I can remember, and it will take time for the industry to reduce excess capacity,’ Scharf said. ‘We’re focused on making sure that we’ve got the right level of expense relative to the revenue and volume that we’re seeing.’”

The Globe and Mail. “In nearly two decades of Google data, the only times ‘recession’ searches have been more prevalent than they are right now have been either just before or during contractions in the Canadian economy (2008-2009, 2015 and 2020). At very least, that the general public has become unusually concerned about the risk of a recession, even in the midst of what is, by many measures, an economic boom.”

“The big trigger appears to be the rapid rise of interest-rate expectations, as central banks get serious about fighting inflation. Those concerns came to a head last week, as the Bank of Canada took the unusual step of raising its key rate by 50 basis points (0.5 percentage points), the first time in more than two decades that it has made such a large rate increase. Normally, the bank’s rate changes are confined to 25 basis points at a time.”

“‘I think there is a gnawing realization that after dramatically over-easing, the central banks are going to end up overtightening,’ said veteran Canadian economist David Rosenberg, who has been warning about the risk of a central-bank-induced recession for months now.”

From Interest New Zealand. “This is going to be like a kind of rolling mortgage earthquake. While we are all rightly gobsmacked by the idea of an inflation rate with a ‘7’ in front of it for the first time in 30 years, those among us with mortgages are facing potentially much worse carnage when it comes to refixing the rate with our bank. The upshot is that someone who took out a 30-year mortgage last May (2021) fixed for a year, and who is now looking to refix, could find their monthly payments will go UP BY EXACTLY A THIRD.”

“Those bigger mortgage payments are going to see reduced spending in the economy. Some people might put their houses on the market, thus increasing the slump already starting to emerge. And so it goes on. I’m not talking here about in the years to come either. This situation is upon us now and I think it will all start to happen pretty quickly.”

The South China Morning Post. “The surge in the US dollar as markets brace for a series of interest rate increases is likely to heap further misery onto Hong Kong’s flagging property market, according to industry watchers. As the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US currency, this in turn will end the era of cheap money that has fuelled Hong Kong’s housing market for the last two decades and made it one of the least affordable places on the planet to own a home, Albert Wong, an honorary consultant at AA Horses Mortgage Brokerage Services said.”

“‘Hong Kong home prices have in the long term been inversely correlated to the strength of the US dollar,’ said Wong. ‘It will mark the end of the low interest rates enjoyed by Hong Kong in the past 20 years, that have propelled the city’s home prices sharply upwards.’”

From Bloomberg. “The income that local authorities in China get from land sales slid in the first quarter, a sign that a housing slump is crimping government finances. Fitch withdrew its ratings on three more Chinese developers, highlighting ongoing transparency issues that may curtail further gains for stocks and dollar bonds in the sector. Elsewhere, two holders of Sunac China Holdings Ltd.’s 2023 dollar bond with interest due Tuesday said they had yet to receive it as of 3 p.m. Wednesday, a week after the Chinese developer failed to meet the initial deadline on another offshore coupon payment.”

“Fitch withdrew its ratings on three more Chinese developers, highlighting ongoing transparency issues that may curtail further gains for stocks and dollar bonds in the sector. The firm separately announced the moves involving Sunac, Shimao Group Holdings Ltd. and Logan Group Co. on Wednesday, saying the trio stopped participating in the ratings process. They were downgraded a combined five times in March by Fitch, moving them all below the single-B range.”